High-profile Liberal candidate Basil Zempilas and Labor housing Minister John Carey traded barbs in a fiery debate just days before the state election. It comes as the Liberals released much-anticipated costings for their election commitments less than 48 hours before polling day, just like Labor did when it was last in opposition.
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00:00Get straight into it.
00:06No love lost between these political antagonists.
00:09Basil, respectfully, it's about giving me an opportunity to have a say.
00:13I can see you're getting...
00:14You've had eight years, friend.
00:15The debate veering towards an episode of Faulty Towers at times.
00:19Under the previous Liberal government...
00:20But how long are we going to go back to the previous Liberal government?
00:23Basil...
00:24John, that was eight years ago.
00:25Basil...
00:26And this observation on the Liberals' long-awaited election costings.
00:29Not a single person of either persuasion or independence or Greens has said to me,
00:34where's your costings?
00:36Nevertheless, they've now revealed their election commitments would cost just over $4 billion.
00:42But with some $620 million in savings identified,
00:46the Liberals say the net impact on debt is $3.4 billion,
00:50virtually the same as Labor's.
00:52The Liberals' costings were conducted by former top public servant Peter Conron,
00:57who ran former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard's office
01:00and was a top adviser to former Liberal WA Premier Colin Barnett.
01:04But the Liberals have defended his independence.
01:06If you rise to the heights of the public service that Peter Conron did,
01:11you vast experience, enormous reputation,
01:16so now I think that would be a slur on his reputation to suggest he's biased in making decisions.
01:21Four years ago, the Liberals' costings amounted to just adding them up,
01:24but even struggled with that.
01:26I'd have to check the policy to see what the cost is.
01:29Well, I don't have it in front of me right now.
01:32This time they say the rationale for the cost of each policy has also been checked.
01:37It was a PowerPoint presentation that was added up by a Liberal Party mate.
01:42That was a sham process.
01:44Also critical of the $5 billion the Liberals have initially allocated
01:48for their promised rebuild of Royal Perth Hospital.
01:51That's less than they're committing to our underfunded Royal Commission into Health.
01:56What we're promising for Royal Perth will actually be determined out of that Royal Commission process.
02:01Meanwhile, Labor's denying the Nationals' claim
02:04the party under-submitted their costings to Treasury by $2 billion.